The present disclosure relates to persistent game sessions with multiplayer support.
With the recent ubiquity of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, multiplayer gaming applications played on such devices have similarly seen a rise in popularity. In a conventional implementation, multiplayer gaming applications supporting multiple user devices typically adopt a client-server model in which the user devices serve as game clients and an intermediary game server coordinates all gameplay and other communications between the user devices. The game server maintains all or most aspects of the game state of the multiplayer gaming application, such as relative in-game character positioning, board positions, character status (e.g. character health), etc., as well as information pertaining to which user devices and users are participating in any given multiplayer game session.
This conventional client-server arrangement presents several disadvantages. One such disadvantage is that the user devices typically must remain connected to a large-scale network, such as the Internet or a cellular network, to maintain communication with the game server and, thus, be able to play the multiplayer gaming application. In the absence of such a connection, despite having access to a small-scale network (such as a local-area network (LAN) or Bluetooth® connection) a user will likely be unable to participate in a multiplayer gaming application game session under the client-server model. In addition, since all or most of the game state information pertaining to a particular multiplayer game session is stored on the game server, it may be difficult for a user to resume a multiplayer game session that was previously adjourned. These and other shortcomings are addressed in the present disclosure.